A Gift of Sanctuary

The reason I have chosen this, the sixth book in the series, to review, is that Geoffrey Chaucer plays a part in it, and that, to my mind, always lends authenticity to any novel set in the second half of the fourteenth century, be it by Anya Seton, Tom Docherty or, as here, Candace Robb. However, the whole series is definitely prosaic (as opposed not only to poetic but to magical) mystery writing; the author has no truck with fantasy.

The hero of the series, Captain Owen Archer, a retired soldier, lives in York with his English wife (he is Welsh by birth) and father-in-law, and his little daughter. His wife is an apothecary, but Owen himself now acts as a spy/agent for Archbishop Thoresby of York and the Duke of Lancaster, and it is this function that gives rise to these stories.

In this one, he is sent to south Wales to investigate reports that Welsh nationalists may be planning to give support to a French invasion - or the French army may be supporting a pretender to kingship in an independent Wales - as the next stage in the on-going Hundred Years War. Accompanying him is his father-in-law, taking this opportunity to go on pilgrimage to St David's, and Geoffrey Chaucer, another agent of the Duke of Lancaster and of the English King.

The description of St David's and the set-up there (read our article on Pilgrims and Pilgrimages) and of the pilgrims (naturally Chaucer is studying them so that he "might describe them in all their variety") is excellent, as is Owen's inner turmoil when he finds himself back in his native Wales and speaking Welsh again for the first time since childhood, but now as an agent for the English Crown.

As soon as he arrives, a dead body is found. Another body, not quite dead, is discovered and given sanctuary by a passing Welsh bard. The Bishop of St David's wants Owen to investigate. At first he is reluctant - but then realises that perhaps there is a connection between the murder and his mission ...